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The trailers for the upcoming Ryan Reynolds-led Deadpool movie have been released!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONHBaC-pfsk]

Warning: the following red-band trailer contains material suggested for mature audiences, including graphic violence and language. So it is awesome!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyKWUTwSYAs]

It is also quite interesting to compare these with the leaked test footage from a few years ago, if you can still find it online. Fox has apparently blocked all of the copies I have seen, on copyright grounds.

My suspicion is that this trailer will be the “finished” version of what was shown at San Diego Comic-Con last month.

“The Merc with a Mouth” often breaks the Fourth Wall in the comic books, so we can expect some of that in the film coming next year. So far, the marketing of this movie has been very meta, including this trailer for a trailer (even featuring “Trailer Voice” saying “In a world …”).

The fact that Ryan Reynolds (who played “Deadpool” in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and campaigned hard to get this movie) has been able to pull off what he has during the past couple years proves that he is a true fan. I am confident that what we get will be a Deadpool fanboy’s dream!

What do you think? Will the Deadpool we get be the Deadpool we deserve?

On Friday, 31 July 2015, at the age of sixty-one, pro wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer “Rowdy” Roddy Piper unexpectedly died of a heart attack in his California home.

Even though he spent a good portion of his career as a heel, he was nearly always a fan favorite due to his overwhelming charisma. No words that I write could ever match the Hot Rod’s own, so here are a few clips from his heyday thirty years ago.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKXpSyjfIik]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGJ1y_Qsa3g]

With Piper’s death so soon after that of his friend Dusty Rhodes, I also thought it might be revealing to hear the two talk of each other:

It should be no surprise, then, that I would be instantly intrigued by a new subscription box from the makers of HeroCrate called … VillainCrate.

VillainCrate will be open for new subscriptions in one month, on 1 September 2015. You can click this link to sign up to be notified when subscriptions are open, and to receive a discount on your order.

This story should be called “Man Living in a Cave for 30 Years Takes Daughters to Target.” Or maybe “Man Projects Sexual Fantasy Onto Children.”

Fox 29 News in Philadelphia ran a remarkable story on 13 July 2015, entitled “Star Wars Action Figure Has Parents Furious.” A man shopping in the Deptford, Pennsylvania, Target store with his two daughters saw the Hasbro Black Series 6″ action figure for Princess Leia in her “slave” outfit—basically a bikini with a chain around her neck—from Return of the Jedi.

He told the news station, “That’s pretty inappropriate. I got two daughters I don’t need seeing that crap.” Other parents interviewed by the news station were also apparently “furious”:

“It’s a little indecent. A little more clothing would have helped,” Eugenia Mirica said.

“It’s just a bit much for a child. So, no, I probably wouldn’t give this to my 4-year-old and maybe not an 8-year-old,” Tiffany Mahan said.

“It’s true to the scene, but I don’t know if I would purchase this for my girls,” added Allison Degarmo.

Return of the Jedi itself was released in 1983 with a “PG” rating but heavily marketed to kids (Ewoks, anyone?) during the conservative Reagan 1980s. Yet there were no complaints at that time about Leia’s bikini on the real-life Carrie Fisher.

In the last thirty-two years, that “golden bikini” has become a pop culture force unto itself. Yes, to a large degree that force is adult male sexual fantasy. This was even exploited on the hit prime-time network television show Friends almost twenty years ago: “The One With The Princess Leia Fantasy,” which aired on 19 September 1996.

The parents who object to this toy—and according to Target this is the only complaint they have ever received since the action figure was released in 2013—are viewing the toy within this sexual framework. Young children, as I myself was when I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater in 1983, do not have this framework. Children see Princess Leia in that outfit within the context of the movie plot: she is a prisoner of a bad guy (Jabba the Hutt), who she eventually kills. The chain has a purpose in the movie—it is the hallmark of a prisoner, not sexual perversion.

To children, the golden bikini worn by Princess Leia is no more sexual than any of the bikinis worn by Barbie or other dolls of that ilk. It should be noted, however, that the bikini worn by the Leia action figure is permanently attached to her body. Unlike Barbie, Leia will never be naked.

Does Barbie’s ability to be rendered completely nude (albeit anatomically incorrect) have Target shoppers similarly “furious”? Or is it simply that Barbie does not turn them on as much as Princess Leia?